Boy jailed for killing foster carer was given placement ‘at last minute’

A TEENAGE boy who stabbed his foster mother to death was placed with her at the last-minute because social workers could not find another home for him in time, an inquiry has heard.

Dawn McKenzie and her husband Bryan took in the 13-yearold after being approached by a fostering agency as time was running out to find him a family.

The couple had never fostered a child before and were given 24 hours to make a decision.

Linda Nicholson, a social worker at Foster Care Associates, told a fatal accident inquiry into Mrs McKenzie’s death how the boy’s social worker at Glasgow City Council, Steven Lorimer, asked her for help in finding a home for him.

The boy had lived with another family before he was placed with the McKenzies in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, in November 2010. He had to leave the previous placement due to a family illness.

Mrs McKenzie, 34, was killed in June 2011 at her home. The boy was jailed for seven years in 2012 after being found guilty of culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Under questioning Mrs Nicholson said that the McKenzies were given some information about the boy’s troubled family background four days before he moved in.

She said: “I remember Steven Lorimer saying ‘We don’t have any carers for him, do you have any carers?’ It was busy, time was marching closer to the end of his current placement.

“Dawn and Bryan were keen to learn more. Although this was their first placement there were transferable skills they could use as Dawn had worked with children.

“They were given information by my colleague that he had had a difficult family background but I don’t remember the specifics.”

Mr McKenzie had earlier told the inquiry that the fostering agency should have given them more information about the boy’s background.

He said when the couple finally received a background report about two months after the placement started, it emerged that when he was taken into care the boy had been sleeping on a trampoline, had no shoes, was living in a house frequented by drug addicts and had suffered “frequent acts of violence”.

Yesterday it also emerged that social workers had concerns the boy would have “difficulties” living with the McKenzies as he was being separated from his two sisters for the first time.

Mr Lorimer earlier told the inquiry he had not met the McKenzies before the boy moved in with them and did not visit him until more than six weeks later.

The inquiry, which is being held in Motherwell before Sheriff David Bicket, continues.